Refuse recycling has become an important way to ensure efficient use of world resources and to slow the growth of landfills. One aspect to efficient recycling is refuse segregation, whereby different types of materials, e.g. plastic, metal, and paper, are separated prior to processing of the old material into new. In this regard, many communities have opted for source separation, whereby homeowners and businesses segregate the materials prior to collection. Source separation requires a collection vehicle suited to maintaining separation of refuse. A particular problem exists with collection of plastic refuse, because of the large volume plastics take up compared to glass, paper and metal.
Collection vehicles have been proposed for the collection of recyclable refuse in communities where source segregation is employed. In general, a vehicle has separate containers for each type of refuse collected. In addition, these vehicles generally provide inlets into the containers through which workers deposit the refuse, and a door for discharge of the collected refuse.
With regard to collecting plastic material for recycling, a compacting ram for compacting the plastic collected may be provided. Compaction increases the mass of plastic that can be collected before emptying the container becomes necessary.
Competing design requirements for these compacting containers include the capability to deposit refuse into the container from either side of the thoroughfare on which the vehicle is being driven, large interior volume particularly for plastic refuse, large discharge area to allow complete emptying of the container, and a locking mechanism for the discharge door.
While prior art devices have provided some solutions to the above-mentioned requirements, there still exists a need in the art to fulfill all of these requirements in a single compacting container.